winter kcw: outfit #3

February 14th, 2014

The last outfit for KCW was half total success and half total failure. Let’s start with the success, shall we? Cheetah Hoodie! My youngest has a long standing obsession with cheetahs. I have read what seems like 700 [very dry] books on cheetahs, watched some rather compelling documentaries, and even made a cheetah pillow for him, but cheetah clothes for boys are hard to find.

Over a year ago now, he fell in love with some leopard print jeggings at h&m and wore them until they were threadbare. He got some funny looks, but he didn’t care–he was a cheetah! Since then I’ve been wanting to make him something cheetah, but not costume-y and not overly girly. I think this hoodie is right on the mark. I really don’t know why there aren’t more clothes like this in the boys section. Everything is navy or gray or red. And if there is some sort of graphic or print it’s so angry: the lions are baring their teeth, the super heroes are crushing bad guys, and there are just a lot of skulls in general. For girls it’s pink and purple princesses and for boys is primary color aggression. Sheesh people, can we ease up on the gender stereotypes. It’s just a shirt.

I made this shirt with the flashback tee pattern, then added a hood and a kangaroo pocket. The neck binding isn’t as wonky as it looks in this photo. It’s actually not half bad. Seeing as necklines are my new nemesis (I conquered hems a while back) I’m calling this a victory. And before you say anything, yes I know this is actually leopard print. Cheetahs have spots and leopards have rosettes. But plain old polka dots don’t really read cheetah, whereas this print it more big cat. He loves it and that all that matters.

These pants I don’t love. I used some thrifted pants and my beloved Happy Homemade vol.2 pants pattern, but the waistband is all kinds of wrong. I tried to salvage the original waistband like I did for his brother’s pants, but the fabric was way, way too thick. I’m going to have to cut off the waistband and try again.

Oh well. My goal for KCW was to make an outfit for each kid. 2 1/2 is not bad. 2 1/2 weeks late is not bad either :)

9 Responses to winter kcw: outfit #3

I completely agree with you about the lack of non-weird boys clothes. Skulls for little boys is the kind of memento mori I doubt anyone needs to see. But this hoodie!!! There’s a little boy in my house who is “fast as a cheetah” who would be so excited to wear something like that. Great stuff.

Aw it’s so cute – I love the cheetah hoodie! So funny which animals our kids latch onto, eh? Em has her famous elephant obsession, and O seems to be getting pretty into crocodiles. But yeah I totally agree about the over the top violent/pirate/army/skull stuff for boys and princessy/makeupy stuff for girls – it’s why I sew!!!

I thought I could break my daughter of the pink and purple syndrome that little girls seems to catch as quickly as the day they are birthed… but alas, she was overtaken by it and now we struggle as I buy her cool boy clothes and make her not so frilly dressy while she shamelessly layers them in necklaces and perfume while demanding “MORE ruffles, More hearts!” ARGH. On one hand I love that my girl has her personal style down, on the other hand I’m not loving the gender stereotyping that seems to have “gotten to her.” lol